


Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls

by mymindsofar



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Humor, Banter, Bucky Is a Good Bro, Cabin Fic, College Football, Dangerously Romanticized College Life, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Can Be A Dick, One Two Three Four Open Up The Closet Door, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson Is Done With Your Bullshit, Secret Relationship, Sharing A Bed With Your Bro(TM), Steve/Tony Civil War-like Tension, Summer Vacation, Tension, Tony Stark Can Be A Dick, Tony has daddy issues, Unlucky Pietro Maximoff, Unrequited Love, college students, lame jokes, so much tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:17:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymindsofar/pseuds/mymindsofar
Summary: “I have a feeling we need to get these two apart before it gets bloody,” Bucky says.“Why? Get the popcorn,” Clint replies.

 
Or the Outdoor Retreat AU no one's ever asked for, featuring a cycle of unvoiced sexual frustration, tension, pining and unnecessary misunderstandings, where no one's safe from the true horror of spending a week with your close friends in a cabin: relationship drama.





	1. 1

“Texas Chainsaw Massacre, way too many episodes of Supernatural, The Evil Dead, _part_ of The Blairwitch Project, Friday the 13 th – let’s be real, a classic – The Hallow, Cabin Fever-”

“Someone please delete his IMDb account,” Natasha sighs and Steve joins in with a chuckle while easily carrying the heaviest of their bags to the cabin, the one loaded with a week’s worth of booze.

Hardly embittered by his girlfriend’s interruption, he continues his smart-assing on the way towards the vacation house in question, “All I’m saying is that Tony’s parents made a very bad investment when they bought a cabin of all the available properties in the Massachusetts. Did the coasts suddenly run out of beach houses?”

“As a matter of fact, they didn’t. We’ve got three bungalows along the West coast line and a couple more properties along the East side, it’s just that I couldn’t convince my father to lend us one in the middle of the season,” Tony retorts as his suitcase struggles through the rain-soaked leaves that wither all year long, creating the particular scent of nearly untouched forest.

“Did I already mention Cabin in the Woods? Last nail in the coffin, quite literally.”

“Don’t mind me asking, buddy, but why exactly did you tag along? Show us all that you spend way too many hours watching movies?” Sam throws in at last, just before they reach the porch. No one beside Clint actually that the cabin could be haunted. It’s overall elegant and light-flooded thanks to an open second floor and partially closed off by a glass roof, modern and spacious. Something a sane ghost would probably be allergic to.

“A cat’s preferred death. Curiosity, of course.”

Rhodey chuckles. “Nat, he’s a poet.”

“The notes he passed along in high school told me as much,” she replies, unaffected by Clint’s bon mot.

Sam looks between the two in disbelief. “Really? High school sweethearts? How did I not know?”

Natasha glares at him. Steve jumps in before she bites. “She prefers long-term relationship that incidentally began when they were teenagers,” he says.

“Are you mansplaining again?” Darcy throws in as she walks in with a single water bottle, taking a sip.

“Sorry! It’s my privilege talking,” he yells as he turns on his heels to get more stuff from the cars. Bucky is collecting the various food items that fell out during the drive upstate. By his own fault, by the way, ‘cause the guy can’t spell ‘speed limit’ to save his life. “I’m being attacked by Darcy’s feminism again,” he complains jokingly.

“What? Didn’t we drop that when Peggy proved she could do more push-ups than you?” Bucky asks.

“Apparently it’s a continuous problem…?” he replies, as if he is none the wiser.

“God, wait? Does that mean us white alpha males are actually threatened by the feminist agenda?” Bucky says, feigning shock.

“Did you just call yourself an alpha male?”

“Don’t even joke, Rogers. I’m twice the man you are,” he says as he picks up two food baskets, like he needs to prove it.

“Right, ‘cause you sleep with ‘em,” he replies, feeling uncomfortable for a different reason than Bucky is probably gonna think, so he grabs another bag while he’s at it.

“Exactly,” Bucky replies, unwavering, and they trudge back inside.

The sound of an engine being turned off turns both of their heads around. “Guys, Peggy and the Maximoffs are here,” Bucky announces inside, and a low-key celebratory roar arises in acknowledgement.

Car doors are being opened and shut, and Peggy comes in with a piece of paper. “We’ve worked out the sleeping arrangements,” she says, loud enough for everybody in the living room to hear.

“Pietro and I are not against sharing a bed, so that cleared up everything else,” Wanda supplies.

“Weird,” Tony comments, but everyone subtly ignores it.

“Clint and Natasha have one guest room, Pietro and Wanda get the other, Tony and Rhodey are in the master bedroom; Steve, Bucky, Sam – you’re settled into the bunk bed slash spare bed arrangement in the former children’s room.”

Sam frowns, not entirely happy with either having to squeeze himself into a 5’6 bunk bed or a squeaking cot while listening to the other two complain. “Hey, no fair. You put three giants into the midget corner.”

“Yeah, where are you in this?” Bucky adds and steps behind Peggy with his arms crossed.

“Unless you prefer to sleep on the sofa in the study with Darcy, I suggest you settle,” she replies icily.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Darcy says with a shrug.

Bucky still looks unhappy, too distracted by the possibility of spending a week in a microscopic bed to notice Darcy’s hardly subtle offer, and also, he has a better idea. “Why don’t the tiny twins take over the bunk beds so Steve and I can have the other guest room?” he says.

“What?” Steve asks, irritated.

“Bros can share a bed, Steve. Twenty-first century and all,” Tony adds. “Plus, _this_ bro can sleep better knowing his cabin vacation is not facilitating shady action between siblings.”

Pietro looks about to run him over. “We’re still here, Tony,” Wanda adds with grinding teeth. The rest is internally snickering because Tony is completely oblivious to all of them, without exception, knowing that his and Rhodey’s ‘bromance’ lost its first letter a while ago, and he is desperately saving face for some reason.

Having infamous human bicycle Bucky Barnes as a friend kind of makes the hiding redundant, anyway. Which brings them back to the current topic of discussion.

“He’s right though, Steve,” Bucky says with a shrug. Steve is still gathering his words, because…

“You scared he’ll rub off on you?” Darcy adds with a smirk, and those who are listening, chuckle. She can take a No quite well, thank you very much. Being one of the few enlightened about his supreme crush on All American Boy over here helps, sure.

“No, no. I mean, it’s fine, we’ve done it before,” Steve says, coming off like he’s assuring everyone else more than himself. And then he realizes how that sounded in context.

“You did?” Sam all but shrieks.

“As _kids_ ,” Bucky barks back.  

“Worse!” Tony shouts, his head going places, because American Idol over here doesn’t look he does more than open doors for old ladies and bring girls home by nine. “Way worse.”

“Mind out of the gutter, people, is everybody happy now?” Peggy cuts in, and sighs. She’s settled into a stool by the kitchen island to correct the layout she drew on lined paper. It didn’t matter once everything was settled, but she likes to stay on top of things.

“I’m sleeping in the living room, away from your shit,” Sam says, defiantly, and Peggy nods. Everyone else grumbles in agreement.

“Booby sisters in the study it is,” Darcy says, lifts her hand towards Peggy and gets an automatic high five from her, who knows it’s easier to go with it than to fight it. It’s not like she hasn’t noticed Darcy’s attempts to imitate her, and it’s not like she actively hates it.

“ _Estupendo_ ,” Tony exclaims. “Who’s on cooking duty?”

Peggy looks up from her list and says, “It goes by room, actually. Guest room on the left, it says here.”

Bucky turns around to peek at the list again. “Congratulations, Bucky, Steve,” Wanda says with a smirk, and Pietro complements her grin on the other side of the room.

“How do you say? Get chopping?” Pietro adds with a smile.

* * *

Peggy and her military-style schedules are too crazy for a bunch of mostly-laid back students, including the jocks, so they let her make a bucket list of things they wanted to get done throughout the week, without strict time frames to do so. Of course no one but her bothered to look at the forecast to go swimming during the best possible weather and leave the cozier activities for the rainy days – which yes, were prognosticated with a high probability, but she had promised to go with the majority vote, as you do. (‘For a Poli-Sci major you’re kinda hung up on getting the upper hand,’ Steve once unhelpfully pointed out.)

So there she is, up on the first full day at the cabin, before a single other soul in the house, looking through their inventory to decide whether it’s worth doing bacon, eggs and pancakes on the first day, risking the possibility of having to send someone out for more eggs as the week progresses because those bloody jocks are more than likely to be hungry for more protein, or do just pancakes which are gonna keep them full much longer until lunch time. Not to mention Bucky, Wanda, Darcy and herself are vegetarians and need some kind of replacement for the bacon (fried tomatoes?), so…

Pancakes it is. They’ll have fresh fruit on the side, for those who don’t like bacon.

After the disaster that was more spaghetti stuck to the pot than on any of the plates and mildly burned tomato sauce, Peggy canceled the previous arrangement and put forward the volunteers who could actually cook a decent meal. It was much preferred to the alternative of suffering in solidarity.

Peggy gets up from where she was crouching beside the fridge, fetches the eggs and milk and walks around the haphazardly organized kitchen, with vegetables lying on the counter that should be in the fridge, or at least the cellar, while every last bottle of liquor is placed lovingly on one of the counters. Incredible.

Steve. That guy pushes himself as much as he lets go, which must be a vital skill as an appraised quarterback slash team captain with only few and far off days. Were it the middle of the season, he would be up long before the sun could greet him, beating her at her own game, but right now, he is peacefully sleeping as she paints a shadow of endless lashes on his cheeks. Damn. Too bad that is not for him to see every goddamn morning. Most things are better enjoyed in moderation, right?

It’s as if Steve heard him, or maybe the warmth on his forehead was getting too much, or maybe he knew that it was time to break the spell of blissful ignorance. His eyes open, and the shadow recedes. “Hey,” he says, croakily.

God, it’s unbearable. “Hey, sleep okay?” Bucky replies, shifting away, in case the proximity is uncomfortable to him.

“Sure,” Steve mumbles, “You?”

Bucky smiles. “You have no idea.” Steve shifts on the pillow, and from the corner of his eye Bucky can see his frown.

“I don’t?” he asks, and Bucky’s expression falters because neither does he, to be honest. Or at least, the hunch he has can never be voiced out loud.

Steve knows that Bucky will not say what he would like him to. It’s just better to be safe than sorry. It’d be weird, admitting to have had a two-year old crush on someone he’d known for so long, and since nothing has ever happened, there’s a high probability he’s alone with that particular problem. Or why else would Bucky gladly sleep with any other guy but Steve?

“I mean… we’re in the middle of the woods without Wifi for a whole week, I can sleep without worrying something embarrassing is gonna get on Instagram.”

“Only you would be this excited about an Internet cleanse,” Steve chuckles. He himself isn’t an avid user, his face only surfaces on game-related pages, silly college paper interviews and the like.

Bucky can’t bear the pillow-but-not-really talk for much longer and gets up. “Well, just making sure those fuckers miss me,” he says with a forced grin, strips off his jogging pants as casually as he can and puts on a pair of khakis. He obviously doesn’t have to impress anyone here, might as well get comfortable.

Steve follows suit, pretending not having looked at Bucky, and puts clothes on rather than changing them. With Bucky’s rep – not that he minds or anything, okay – he should be used to sleeping in his underwear or less, but only tonight, in a house that doubles as a torturous sauna without the windows open and mosquito nets intact, he opts for pants and a shirt. After three beers Steve found it hard to care about his decency, which is why he now puts on cargo pants and a shirt with a different flavor of morning regret.

Opposite their room, Tony is clinging to Rhodey like an octopus, and Rhodey almost pities him for his hangover, but mostly he’s mad because in all these years, he couldn’t shake the habit of going full-on and ending the night with a bang – or, more realistically, with some or any surface needing extensive cleaning from the inside of his stomach. Which Rhodey is usually left with to clean up.

“Cuddle me,” Tony whines, but Rhodey goes rigid because his bitterness currently overrules his readiness to comfort Tony after another self-indulgent night. Usually Tony acts up this much when it’s getting closer to finals, needing to prove to every last one that even with an active construction site drilling and hammering inside his skull he can ace his exams without as much as trying.

“I smell breakfast,” Rhodey mumbles back, because yeah, he’s not that mad, and he better not be pushed. Tony needs something in his stomach anyway.

“Okay, bring me some,” Tony says but holds him tighter, clutching at him with both his arms and a leg for good measure.

“Asshole,” Rhodey says, and effortlessly frees himself from Tony.

No movement. Tony opens his eyes. Rhodey has a hand stretched out at him. Reluctantly, he takes it and Rhodey nearly lifts him off the ground like he’s a prissy princess, which, all things considered, isn’t too far from the truth.

Also, he’s a stick by comparison because he doesn’t have a brutal protein diet like his… like Rhodey does. Being in the football team and completing an Engineering Major at MIT is a suicide mission for anyone but Rhodey, but he needs to keep up both because _he_ isn’t a princess with money getting shoved up his ass, and won’t accept Tony’s ass-shoving either. Depends on the context, though. It’s Tony’s father after all who made football scholarships at the Institute even a thing.

Tony still feels shitty once he’s up, probably more as he has to walk down the stairs and suffer through micro-concussions, just to follow the sickly-sweet smell of pancakes. And bacon. And tomatoes. God no, he needs a beer, or two.

Steve and Bucky are sitting on opposite sides of the dining table, obviously thrown out of the kitchen as both look very tensely at Peggy handling everything sizzling and cooking on the stove by herself, and not talking to keep Sam asleep.

“God, you’re an angel, Peg,” Rhodey says, places a hand on her shoulder and gets plates and silverware.

“Never heard that before,” she says with a smile. Rhodey takes the plates and lays them out across the open kitchen/living room/dining space, because eleven people will not fit at an eight people table. The plate he sets down next to the coffee table is the one that wakes up Sam, who startles awake with a mumbled curse.

“Morning to you too,” Rhodey jokes. “Wanna spread the word about breakfast?”

“Do I?” Sam retorts sorely, but gets up and gets on with it automatically. He knocks on the Maximoffs’ door first, because they will probably be up by now. They let him in immediately, dressed and with their beds perfectly made, sitting on the lower one, their chat interrupted by his entrance.

“Morning, Sam,” Wanda says, not reading his shocked reaction when she kisses him on the cheek as she walks past him. It’s casual enough not to be too on the nose, as they say.

“How long have you two been up?” he asks.

“Two hours, maybe,” Pietro replies. “But you’re a light sleeper, so.”

“So,” Sam echoes, which is as close to thank-you as it gets at this hour.

“Who is having coffee?” Wanda asks, twirling around in her pretty cherry-patterned white dress. Pretty sure everyone’s only seen her in Goth appeal since they met her, so this is new.

“Triple espresso,” Tony shouts across the room, and regrets it instantly as the choice of volume echoes twice in his head.

The machine is the only really modern-looking item in the kitchen, and looks intimidating compared to the rest of the inventory. Wanda walks up to it and doesn’t find the option.

Sam steps in. “Look,” he says, placing a mug underneath and pushing the double espresso button. “When it’s done, you push the single espresso one. Same for Clint? Pretty sure we won’t lure him out with anything less.” She nods, and watches the magic happen. “I brought a French press,” she mentions.

“Make that for Clint. He likes your coffee,” Pietro says. Would be good to find it first. She asks Pietro.

“Red Adidas bag, we left it in the car.” Pietro is very good at remembering all the propositions in English, but it is harder for him to pronounce them one after another. With his otherwise fluent speech, the short words sound like accidental stops, like with sensitive car brakes.

She nods, and walks out into the already warm air to get it.

“How do you what coffee Clint likes?” Tony wants to know.

“We are roommates,” Pietro says, offended. “I know what Natasha likes, too. For, um, better or worse.”

The small round chuckles, and Pietro fills up the kettle for the press. Wanda returns, fills the press with ground coffee and holds it up for Pietro to fill it up with water. “What up, Wilson, didn’t you have a job?” Rhodey reminds him.

“I’d rather get tackled five times by Logan Ryan than walk in there without coffee on me.”

“What about Darcy?”

Peggy looks up from the stove. “Not a chance. I crawled over her this morning and it looked like she wasn’t even breathing.”

Tony points at Peggy, and says, “’cause that girl can drink like a fish,” all too proudly.

Peggy definitely prefers it when Darcy’s lack of confidence expresses itself in imitating better role models than Tony. “How is that worth bragging about?” she asks him.

“Relax, Peg. Or well, try,” Bucky says, and ducks immediately. She throws him a sharp look at him, and not a physical object.

“Coffee’s done, Sam, you’re up,” she tells him instead, and he sighs as he pours in what looks like a recipe for a heart-attack – no sugar, no cream, not the least bit translucent – into two cups and walks upstairs to the guest rooms.

He knocks with one of the cups, but not a sound comes out from the other side, so he carefully pushes down the handle and looks up to-

“Oh fucking hell-”

Natasha stops mid-riding movement and turns around, about to throw anything at him that has edges to it and will probably hurt. Nope, this is too much. Clint hasn’t even looked up from where he’s probably extremely comfortable right now, and Natasha isn’t moving, either.

While realistically, all this takes place in a span of seconds – him walking in on them fucking, placing down the cups on the table _thankfully_ right beside the door and slamming it shut immediately – but it feels like he’s aged a hundred years when he’s out of the room.

“I feel like I should have warned you,” Pietro says, looking up at Sam from the open space of the upper floor. Right, the roomie would know when the sock’s on the door knob. And that it’s an early-bird-and-worm situation.

“You think?” Sam barks back.

Peggy is plating up and he’s goddamn hungry, but it’s hard to shake the image of a naked Natasha sitting on… Oh God.

“You’re the best,” Steve says as she places bacon in a cross on top of the pancakes and drizzles some of the oil on there, too.

Tony chuckles. “What, Cap, you too orgasming on this beautiful morning?”

Steve frowns at him, and Bucky can’t suppress a smile. “Look at it this way,” Bucky says, “They feel comfortable enough around us to do it without looking the door.”

“I won’t look at it that or any other way,” Sam replies, and Bucky teases him with a look.

“How are you gonna manage without sleeping with anyone for a week, anyway, Barnes?” Tony teases. Peggy leaves the leftover pancakes in the oven for those who decided to postpone their breakfast for personal reasons.

“I know you don’t think highly of me, Stark, but I’m not gonna dry-hump your pillows should something come up, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replies, with a hint of bite in his tone. Steve gulps. Pillows, no, but he could swear at some point tonight Bucky had something come up. While asleep.

“Seriously people, is there anything else worth discussing?” Peggy cuts in.

“Ask the psychologist, once she’s finished her current task. Pretty sure she’s gonna tell you sex is one of the most important topics to be discussed.” No doubt about that, given what she _is_ currently at.

“During breakfast?” she deadpans.

Rhodey sees that as a cue to redirect. Almost like football. “Plans for today?” he asks, digging into his breakfast.

“I wanna go swimming,” Wanda says. “Tired of pools and that sick chemical smell.”

“Well, you’re gonna _love_ the smell of muddy lake,” Tony replies. “But I don’t mind a bikini day, cures my hangovers.”

He gets a well-deserved kick from Rhodey under the table. “Yeah ‘cause all the blood from your brain flows downstairs,” Bucky jokes.

Peggy slams the coffee pot on the table. “I told you, any subject leads to the essence of life,” Tony remarks, which is hardly helpful.

As if on cue, Nat and Clint walk in, and Sam looks before he remembers not to. They match, in the sense that Natasha is wearing an oversized shirt and Clint is not, but hey, both have pants on. Very short pants on Natasha’s part, but. _Fuck, Wilson, what the fuck_. She’s not paying any attention to him as she grabs an empty plate, loads it up while Clint sits down, happy but still tired, with the black death mug in his hand. Natasha comes back and sits down on his lap, right in Sam’s direction. Great. Absolutely fantastic.

So they sit there while Clint and Natasha play a game of who can feed the other more pancakes and wash it down with coffee, discussing the upcoming season, which Sam should be more invested in than he is. But come on. This is so fucking unfair.

Finally, her green eyes meet his. She’s chewing on a pancake, and she’s gorgeous just looking casual and he shouldn’t stare back and…

“Sammy?” Who besides Steve would ever go with endearing terms for fellow student athletes? He’s the one who came up with Bucky, but that’s… they were what, like, five?

“Wha’?” Sam says with his mouth full to buy some time.

“Wanna go for a few practice rounds later?” Steve says, sounding like he’s repeating himself.

“It’ll take more than a week to forget how to catch and throw a goddamn ball, Rogers,” Sam replies, and he can see the corner of Natasha’s mouth rise. Faintly, but noticeably.

A door on the upper floor opens and out comes a mess of hair wearing flower-patterned shorts and a shirt. Her yawn though, at least from everyone else’s shared angle, overshadows any other sign of the hungover trainwreck going by the name of Darcy.

“What happened? Why am I… nowhere?”

“You and Tony played a drinking game to Pulp Fiction until three am,” Sam reminds her, because they were the reason he slept a bare minimum is so pissy and agitated.

“Did I have a death wish?” she mumbles, walking down the stairs slowly.

“No, but fun. You had fun,” Tony argues.

“Poor Sam,” Wanda says with a sympathetic smile.

“Thank you!” Sam exclaims, “Someone gets it.”

“Poor _me_ ,” Darcy adds, rubbing her temples, elbows resting on the wooden banisters.

Sam takes pity on the wretched soul, even though she can laugh like a maniac when she’s drunk and shatter glass with her voice. “Come here, plenty of coffee and other hangover cures,” he says, offering his seat. Given who’s sitting at the head of the table, he’s not particularly hungry anymore.

Can legs even be that smooth? _Wilson, you fuck._

“Courtesy of Peggy,” Steve adds. “We’re very grateful.”

Peggy chuckles, sitting sideway in her chair with her arms crossed. “Don’t expect this to happen every morning.”

“We would never take you for granted,” Natasha says, biting into the strawberry Clint was holding up to her.

Peggy rolls her eyes, but she’s faintly amused, so it’s fine.

“Beach day, was it?” Peggy asks with her head lifted, and Darcy looks up.

“Only if everyone strips,” Darcy says, motivations clearly not lined up with her cause.

“That is one twisted attempt at equality,” Bucky says with a chuckle.

“I’m still human,” Darcy replies with a shrug.

“I’ll get the ball,” Sam says to finally escape the madness of watching but not watching Natasha sucking strawberries out of Clint’s hand.

* * *

The sun is burning, and Darcy and Wanda are doing a good job at making a cool-off in the lake sound perfectly entertaining, not to mention like a much-needed refreshment. She pulls down the holders of her thin jumpsuit and leaves it behind as she walks over to the water.

Like she doesn’t feel the gazes on her, especially from a particular someone, she makes a head dive once she’s deep enough in the water and swims until she reaches Wanda and Darcy splashing each other. They stop, clearing their throats almost when they see her.

“God, it’s so nice,” Darcy says instead. Natasha nods, with a look around her.

“My brother and I used to live near a lake,” Wanda says.

“You miss it?” Natasha asks.

“More than I miss gyms that smell like piss,” she admits. She and Pietro both got into college with an athletic scholarship, so in the end, she still has to thank the smelly gym for how far she’s come.

“I can imagine,” Darcy says. She looks at the other end of the lake. “You think you two could race to the other side?”

“What? That’s like five kilometers,” Wanda says.

“How much is that in American?”

“Three miles,” Natasha supplies. “But I don’t know about the currents here,” she says, looking towards the closer shore instead.

On land, Clint catches Steve’s pass and ends up falling into Sam, and they both lie there for a second in the mud, heaving.

“Any supernatural activity yet?”

Clint snorts. “Except for your pale face this morning?”

“Fuck off,” Sam sighs, and gets up. Clint holds out his hand and Sam gets him off the ground.

“You need some tea with that chit-chat?” Steve asks and holds up his hand to catch Clint’s rebuttal throw twenty yards away. Boy can he get competitive. And impatient.

“You’ve been at this for an hour. Take five?” Bucky shouts, closer on Steve’s end in a lounger with a cup holder for his mojito. With this weather, it’s more mint water than rum but he’ll be damned if he wastes it.

“What? You getting tired just by watching someone move their ass?” Sam teases back, but follows him up on the offer.

Steve tries not to notice that the hour alone was enough to give Bucky a light, but appealing tan. Steve’s Irish skin makes him look like a fresh rosy piglet in the same amount of time. And yes, with sunscreen.

“I can’t handle watching you guys with your heads in the game at all times,” he says theatrically once the four players settle into the loungers around him. It’s Steve who chuckles, because Bucky played no other than Troy Bolton in a high school production in senior year.

Tony snorts, awakened and refreshed from his own mojito, definitely not checking out shirtless Rhodey through his sneaky shades. Covered in mud, too, which isn’t helping his case. “Come on, you’ve got _your_ head up someone else’s ass most of the time. You should be able to relate.”

“Aren’t you?” Bucky snidely replies. Awkward pause.

“Tell me, Rogers, _is_ he a pain in the ass?” Tony asks, and Steve clutches the ball just a little bit tighter and avoids Bucky’s eyes.

“Why do you ask me?” Steve replies tensely.

Tony shrugs. “No reason.” Of course those two idiots have no idea of each other’s hard-ons. Tony’s been there, for half a year, when Rhodey was assigned as his roommate, because two giddy fifteen-year olds who graduated high-school two years early should have been easier to handle on campus than just one.

“Compensating for not having a huge dick by being one?” Steve supplies, growing a little agitated because Tony very well knows what he’s referring to, and the last thing he needs it awkwardness between him and his current roommate.

“Wishful thinking,” Tony says with an eye roll.

“James,” Bucky says, crossing his arms and looking at Rhodey with a smirk.

“Yes, James?” Rhodey replies. It’s old news, but still amusing to refer to their shared first names in moments like these, given the parallel it draws on their relationship. More than loving to hate Bucky, Tony loves riling up Steve for no reason.

“I have a feeling we need to get these two apart before it gets bloody,” Bucky says.

“Why? Get the popcorn,” Clint throws in, opening a beer from the cooler.

All four stare him into submission and he settles into the lounger, defeated for now. Sam stays out of it, for his last shred of sanity. Besides, the girls are pretty far off-shore, so he tells himself that’s why he doesn’t pay attention to this dick-measuring contest or whatever.

“Beer?” Steve asks to attempt a truce, for now.

Tony shrugs again. “Hit me.”

“I would gladly…”

“Stevie, drop,” Bucky says, and takes Tony’s equally melted mojito since he won’t finish it.

“Is he housebroken, too?” Clint asks. Sam sighs.

Peggy finally comes out, and the guys look at her, a little surprised, and she smiles to herself that it worked on Steve, too. So it was worth looking for that red bikini after all.

“Darcy wasn’t lying about the sister thing,” Tony comments, and immediately it’s ruined.

“Shots for every death stare,” Clint says and takes a dutiful sip from his beer. Peggy throws him a look. “Aaand once again.”

“You look great,” Steve says with a nod, and Bucky, less polite than Steve, stares her up and down.

“Anyone up for a swim? You guys look filthy,” she says.

“Thank you, I try very hard,” Bucky quips, and takes the straw into his mouth to make a point.

“Why not, those three are having fun,” Steve says. “Water volleyball?”

“You into watersports now, Cap?” Tony teases, and Clint tends to his beer again when Steve turns around.

“I’ll be the judge,” Bucky says and raises his hand. He does as little sports as possible, so long as it doesn’t concern hip movement.

“Nuh-uh, not with your favoritism,” Sam throws in.

“Excuse me?”

“You’d fight against gravity if it ever wronged Steve,” Rhodey admits.

Bucky frowns. “Fine, I’m on his team though.”

“Who would have thought,” Tony remarks as he walks to the shed to get the water net for the game.

Nat, Wanda and Darcy are swimming back towards the shore, and Sam attempts a smile at Natasha. It’s like they’ve fought, but they didn’t, and it’s uncomfortable because usually they’re on the same page, and they know how to properly bitch about their friends.

“Did Pietro come back yet?” Wanda asks, and the group shakes their heads.

“Theoretically, could he outrun a bear?” Darcy asks jokingly.

Tony comes back just in time to join the conversation. “First, no bears around here, second, they run up to twenty-eight miles per hour, so unless Pietro can surpass Usain Bolt himself at his top speed for longer than ten seconds, I doubt it.”

“Third,” Natasha throws in, “Usain Bolt is the fastest _recorded_ runner, although fourth, it’s physically impossible to keep the pace, unless, say, a near-lethal dose of adrenaline helps you out.”

“Thanks, Google and Wikipedia,” Darcy muses, “for answering a hypothetical question.”

“Wait, which one’s which?” Tony wants to know.

Wanda scoffs. “Guys, I’m being serious here.”

“Relax,” Clint says. “He’s the best on the track team, pretty sure he’ll get here eventually.”

Natasha nods, drying herself off against Clint as she slides her cold arms around his waist. “Give him another hour, then we’ll drive around in case he got lost somewhere.”

“Thank you,” Wanda says, a little sore from their thoughtless banter.

“Means there’s ten of us, though,” Sam says, picking up the volleyball Tony dropped along with the net. “So we’ll have to be democratic about it.”

“Coincidentally my expertise,” Peggy says, snatching it from him with a grin. They don’t notice Pietro coming out of the woods before he lands in the water with a loud splash.


	2. Chapter 2

Wanda cries out, forgets about the game and runs through the water and over to him, the others following behind.

“Pietro?” she asks once she pulled his head out of the lake.

“I didn’t see that coming,” he says. His words are a little slurred, and as soon as they have him upright, he hunches back over and throws up right into the water. A mixture of noises comes from the group.

Bucky comes over to hold up the rest of his body in the shallow water. “Sunstroke, let me handle this,” He puts Pietro’s arm over his shoulder, with Steve automatically taking over the other side, and it takes two shaky steps together through the mud at the ground before Steve simply picks up the skinny kid and carries him inside.

Bucky opts for the bathroom, as it seems to be the safest place, sun-shielded and otherwise. Read: in case he retches again.

Steve puts him down on the shut toilet lid.

“Kiddo, you in there?” Bucky asks, trying to hold Pietro’s head up and keep him awake. With his only free hand, he turns on the water in the bathtub, switching it to the coldest temperature.

“I need you to find me some ice,” he tells Steve, who nods and goes out immediately.

Getting the cooler won’t be enough for the whole bath, and there isn’t any in the freezer, which leaves him puzzled for a moment before he remembers from Tony’s mojito-making that there’s another freezer in the cellar, and runs down to find his guess confirmed. He fetches the ice bucket and fills it to the brim, running back to the bathroom, where Bucky is stripping Pietro out of his running clothes.

It only irritates him for a moment. He gets a grip on himself to put that poor kid’s life before his stupid crush and pours the whole bucket into the water. “More?” he asks.

“Yeah, the more the merrier,” Bucky says, with his ridiculous habit of witty commentary in serious situations. Steve goes back, fills up two buckets this time and throws them in. They both guide Pietro in, who winces a little at the temperature, but Bucky calmly talks him into sitting down and submerging himself as much as possible.

Pietro mumbles something in Slovak, and Bucky replies in Romanian, and they’re probably not even on the same topic but it seems to help either way. Bucky feels Pietro’s pulse and forehead, and releases some of the tension when he finds both on their way to normal.

“You’re gonna be a killer doctor,” Steve praises, and Bucky snorts without taking his eyes off of Pietro.

“God, I hope not.”

Steve catches the fault in his phrasing. “You know what I meant.”

Bucky nods. “If not, I’ll try to get into Grey’s Anatomy, or revive Emergency Room. Do you think I could make a good Clooney replacement?” he quips.

Steve looks at him. God yes he would. Young Clooney had this nonchalant charm that Bucky exhales with every breath.

Like hell he could say that.

“Not with your dumb face,” Steve replies lamely, and Bucky pushes him away with a bitter smile.

“What about you? Did you decide whether you’re going full NFL?”

“You think I should?”

“Don’t ask the guy who needs a full dose of your stupidity no less than once a week.” Bucky clears his throat, because whoa was that sappy, “I mean, it’ll be hard being apart for months at a time, is all.” He sighs. “We’re just so… used to each other’s company, I guess. But. You make the shots. And the NFL. Okay?”

“Sure, Buck,” Steve says, not sure whether it’s what he wanted to hear.

Fuck, priorities. “Maximoff, what’s the status?” Bucky asks. Pietro whines a little.

“I think my penis crawled back into my body,” he says, after a long thought pause. Maximum effort, at least. They share a short chuckle.

“I’ll go find my thermometer, you’ll need to lie in there for another while. Steve, you’re on watch.”

Steve nods dutifully, and gives Pietro a sympathetic smile. He’s pretty sure that the thermometer was not the sole reason Bucky needed to leave the room, it’s just that he isn’t sure what the other thing is, because his theory… it can’t be.

* * *

 

Sam volunteers to cook, since it’s barbecue and they’d kinda miss out on a lot if they don’t let him handle this. He’s not as good as his Dad, but close enough, anyway.

He marinades he meat in the kitchen, a little scared off by the midday heat as is the rest of them (just imagine, with the sunstroke situation going on), but a large portion of the gang went for the cellar with its foosball table and darts board, like they don’t have that in the dormitory common rooms or in Stark’s spacious apartment in Cambridge. While Steve and Bucky are still nursing Pietro back to life with the now-recovered Wanda – thanks to him, no less – and Peggy went upstairs to the study to do some reading with Natasha. The rest is beneath Sam’s feet with a chart playlist blasting up to the ground floor, and pretty buzzed judging by the growling and comradery shouting over Lady Gaga and One Republic.

He’s about to set the bowl aside when a door opens and someone descends very quietly from the stairs. Sam turns around, knowing fully well who to expect.

“Hi,” she says, when he doesn’t. He acknowledges her with a nod, and puts the bowl into the fridge to chill.

“Is that it? You saw my tits and now we’re not talking anymore?”

“Give a guy some time to process it,” Sam retorts, somewhat annoyed.

“Why? Is the spank bank material that good?” she asks, almost as a joke. Yeah, if he could remove one not so small detail, it just about might.

“No,” he says defiantly, and she rewards him with a disbelieving smirk. He doesn’t buy it, either.

“Alright,” she says, playing along for whoever’s sake, maybe because she doesn’t consider it worthwhile addressing or maybe because as long as it isn’t said out loud, it isn’t really a thing.

Thing is, Sam might be tempted, but he’s not getting between high school sweethearts that would most likely kill for each other. Especially since this whole ordeal is entirely one-sided. Natasha is but an excellent tease.

“Need a hand?” she asks.

“Uh,” he looks around, “not really. You could turn up the barbecue, if you really want to.”

“I know how to start a fire,” she says, unnecessarily close to Sam and walks out. Yeah, that she does.

* * *

 

“Two fires on the same property, aren’t the neighbors gonna think we’re performing some satanic ritual?” Clint asks.

“Which movie is that?” Natasha asks, prone to fall asleep to anything Clint finds even remotely enjoyable to watch.

“I can’t count right now,” he replies.

“That's not the correct term,” she corrects.

“Smartass,” he snorts, and she nuzzles his neck with a grin.

“Wind each other up elsewhere,” Tony sighs, sitting next to his favorite drinking buddy so that no one can tell him he spent the whole day just around Rhodey. Darcy smiles.

“I mean… this time we won’t miss a thing,” she jokes.

“I can’t tell whether that’s objectification on your part or not,” Steve admits with a look in Darcy’s direction.

“It is, but I’m a little too buzzed to care,” she says with a shrug.

“I kinda love her like this,” Tony admits.

She hits him in the side. “Only a chauvinist like you would say that,” she mumbles, hurt.

He hugs her, and shakes her up a little under the quilt they’re sharing. With their current blood alcohol content no one’s up for heated discussion.

Wanda hasn’t left Pietro’s side since the heat stroke, and he doesn’t look exactly rosy, last time Bucky checked in on them. At least he had some potatoes during the barbecue before he went to sleep.

Peggy and Sam come out of the house after loading up the dishwasher. To everyone’s surprise, she settles on the log Steve’s sitting on and politely asks him for a share of the quilt.

That’s an interesting development, Bucky thinks, holding his marshmallow directly over the flame until it catches fire.

He’s at a wrong angle to inconspicuously watch Peggy and Steve, needing to turn his head for that, so he concentrates on his marshmallow instead.

“FYI, Clint, there’s no neighbors in a three-mile radius.”

“In Massachusetts, nobody can hear you scream,” Clint says bitterly.

“Well, the boy scouts might, there’s a summer camp on the other side of the lake. I almost got my father to send me there once so I could spend two weeks by myself in the cabin,” Tony says.

“How old were you?” Sam asks.

“Seven? I think.”

Steve gets up and walks away from the fire, and Bucky maliciously hopes it’s something Peggy said. He likes Peggy, it’s just the idea of Steve and her, together, that makes him think and act like a petulant child.

“Don’t you think you could use some of that horror movie trivia to sell them some spooky-ass ghost story?”

Clint nods, making a. overly agreeing face. “Yeah, ‘cause a twenty-something getting on a property mostly occupied by pre-pubescent boys and telling them scary stories sounds completely fine to me.”

“Should’ve done a better background check, Nat,” Sam notes with a smile, saving his marshmallow from the vicious flames. The smile disappears from his face just as quickly when Nat gives him a knowing look.

“Right, like, I’m convinced there’s a file with all my dirt on some secret hard drive on your computer,” Darcy says with a frown, and thankfully gets Nat’s attention instead of focusing on defeating Sam in an uncomfortable staring contest, like they ever are.

“Like, what? That you pretend you don’t like mayonnaise and yet always eat it when we have fries?”

Darcy snickers darkly. “If we have to talk about pretending, I’m not your best scapegoat,” she replies, looking to her left, where Bucky is sitting.

“Darce, lay off the hard liquor all right,” Bucky says, hoping it comes across more like stern worry and less like an attempt to shut her the hell up about it.

“Fine,” she says, and Tony looks concerned into the flames.

“Well, I mean she’s not wrong.” The gazes shift to Tony. “I, uh, there’s something worth mentioning.” God he hopes he’s making the right decision here. They all look at him expectantly.

Steve walks back into the dim atmosphere equipped with the guitar Peggy suggested him to bring, just as Tony says, “I’m, uh…”

Rhodey nods, he’s been waiting to come out to his friends for a couple of years now, since it had been pointless from the start. The usual questions concerning his eternal ‘single’ status are about whether he’s gay (yes) or just keeping it very low-profile (also yes), so if that could stop, he’d have a free second to breathe again.

“I’ve been in a relationship with this Rhodey for five years. Anything else you’ve heard is… mostly rumors.” An apologetic nod goes towards Rhodey, which he accepts with a nod of his own.

Steve is a little shell-shocked by the news, but everyone else reacts rather mellowly.

“Am I gonna say it or does anyone else volunteer as tribute?” Darcy asks, but it remains quiet except for the snickering bonfire. “We knew, my dear,” she finally says, bracing for his reaction.

“But… Oh God. You knew that they knew, didn’t you?” he asks Rhodey, calm by his standards.

“I didn’t tell them, you’re just… affectionate when you’re drunk.”

“Reduced to groping hands and a leech for a mouth. I fell victim to you once, but promptly noticed your preference for the other James,” Bucky says with a grin. Good thing Tony doesn’t remember that particular night. What a perk of getting wasted.

“I get the vibe that I’m drunk a lot,” Tony says.

“So, you too?” Natasha cuts in, her lips not locked with Clint’s since Steve left the round, and which he is currently hesitant to rejoin.

Bucky opts for two birds with one stone; shifting the subject away from Tony’s alcohol problem and getting Steve away from Peggy. “Stevie, come here. We definitely need a mood boost,” he says, tapping on the free spot next to him and leaving Steve hardly a choice.

“Any requests?”

“Bonfire Heart!” Darcy shouts, and everyone else groans.

Steve hits a couple chords to warm himself up. “You sure? You gonna wake up with that song stuck in your head tomorrow.”

“ _People like us, we don’t…_ ” She continues singing under the quilt Tony is attempting to stifle her under.

“Titanium?”

“Bad Reputation,” Natasha says with a smile.

“Stop and Stare,” Bucky says, quieter than the other suggestions raining in. Steve gives him a look like he had wanted Bucky to say just that, and God, he can’t help himself reacting to that just a little; his breath hitches for a second. Steve plays the first few chords as a warm-up, and begins to sing.

“ _This town is colder now, I think it’s sick of us, It’s time to make our move now…_ ”

“ _I’m shaking off the rust_ ,” Bucky joins in and doesn’t unlock the stare they’ve got going.

By the time the refrain hits, everyone else is singing along and Steve’s eyes are lit up from the bonfire, but Bucky hopes it’s something else too. He hopes that Steve’s had just the right dosage of courage and is ready to be told the truth, because Bucky is just about to shout it over their singing. He looks fucking amazing in this light, lazily strumming and his voice boundless and far away when he’s right beside him.

Natasha is looking at Sam when Darcy convinces Steve to play Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner next.

( _I keep my jealousy close_

_Cause it’s all mine_

_And if you say it makes you happy_

_Then I’m not the only one lying_ )

Sam excuses himself after ten minutes of back and forth staring and Clint’s enraging obliviousness to it. A test, just to make sure.

And less than five minutes later, as he’s standing in the kitchen with a glass of tap water to come down a little, she’s there, hands on his jaw and head tilted as she goes on her tiptoes for a kiss. Sam lets her, because he’s admitting to himself only now that this was exactly why he had been so drawn to her. Not just the banter, the shared humor, this.

And it fills him with guilt, more than the need to continue. Somehow, she knows it, too, and they draw back simultaneously.

Before he says a thing, she does. “Happy now?”

Sam frowns. “What?”

“You won’t date a cheater. And now you know it, too.” With that, she turns on her heels, and he tries to figure out what kind of reverse psychology she just made him go through.

At least, and he’s only applying it to the right here and right now, it worked.

Wanda quietly shuts the door to her room, stifling her reaction to make sure she doesn’t wake her brother.

* * *

“Got your turn?” Steve asks, lying on the bed with a book and his reading glasses on. Bucky nods, not needing to admit that he had a very thorough shower, just in case.

Since everyone had been in the lake today, most of the warm water had been used up by the eleven people currently residing in the house, and Bucky had to wait for the boiler to catch up with their consumption.

“Yeah, yeah. Oh shit, wait, I didn’t brush my teeth,” he lies, grabs the towel around his waist and runs back into the bathroom, where Darcy is currently brushing, too. She spits into the sink when she sees him. Well, he’s used to this kind of reaction to him.

“Look,” she says, once her mouth is toothpaste-free, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier, about pretending.”

Bucky shrugs. “It’s… actually no big deal, I think. I had a feeling, earlier when I suggested that old One Republic song. I mighr have a shot tonight.”

“I noticed, you left your bulb douche on the bathtub,” she says.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. I cleaned it though.”

Darcy snorts. “I know you’re a professional. Just… go easy on the guy?” She’s not about to reveal that the possibility is real, that’s up to them to find out. Not messing with other people’s business uninvited. Again.

“God, yeah. Just, you know, always prepared.”

She smiles. “In case you need a pity fuck, I’m down. Or up. Depends.” She winks.

He smiles, because Darcy’s been joking about it a lot over the years. If she hadn’t grown on him, he might have taken up the offer. “Sure, I’ll look into it.”

“Slip a note under the door.” He ruffles through her hair and leaves with the douche hidden as best as he can under the towel. Feeling bad about it, Darcy somewhat hopes it doesn’t go well.

Steve, luckily, only left the bed light on to read, and is engrossed enough not to pay attention to Bucky putting it back into a plastic bag and at the bottom of his duffel bag, slipping under the covers on the other side of the bed.

So.

So…

“What are you reading?” Bucky asks, dumbly.

“Picture of Dorian Grey. For my Lit class. I like it so far.” The naïve boy being twisted by manipulative thoughts. There’s something to think about.

“You’re breaking all the stereotypes on jocks,” Bucky chuckles.

“Of course, I want Peggy and Darcy to be proud of me.”

Bucky feigns annoyance and sinks into the pillow. Now’s a window, he tells himself. And now, and now. Come on, talk, you idiot.

“Steve…”

“Hm?” God does he look cute in those glasses. He has contacts during games, but it’s not bad enough to need correction all the time.

“Would you be ready for another big, not quite hidden revelation?”

Steve sighs with a smile. “Wasn’t ready for the last one, to be honest.”

“What?”

“I had no idea,” Steve admits with a shrug.

Change of plans. “But you knew with me?” Steve’s the only person who’s never asked him about who he sleeps with, or even acknowledge the fact that he does. And rumors… well, they have a reputation of not always being close to the reality of the situation. He knows best of all.

Steve rolls his eyes. “God, Buck, you made out with my cousin on my eighteenth birthday.” Which kinda hurt? It had a ‘close enough’ vibe to it, and well, not that Bucky knew what was going through Steve’s overwhelmed brain at the time.

“Oh shit. Sorry. But now he knows he’s gay?”

“My mother hates him.” Bucky gulps.

“Because he’s…?”

“What? No! Because he’s a dick to anything that breathes. My Ma’s not homophobic, you jerk.”

“I know, Jesus. I… on that note, though, have _you_ ever considered…?”

Steve manages half a smile. “What, are you offering?”

Bucky looks away. “Coincidentally, yes.”

Steve scoffs and shuts the book, which isn’t as dramatic as it could be because it’s not a paperback version. “Seriously?” he says, sitting upright on the bed. It would be tempting, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s all kinds of wrong. He’s not going for the opportunity if it’s Bucky’s offer to satisfy a faint curiosity.

“Not what I meant. I was… very badly admitting that I may have feelings for you,” Bucky says, undermining the certainty of his position to avoid scaring him off even further.

Steve’s vision goes white, and his heartrate picks up like crazy. A _maybe_ , that’s what keeping it under lock gets him.

“Do you need a confirmation or something? Your signature on my ass to make sure?”

Bucky would be amused were it not for Steve’s eyebrows about to merge together from how riled up he is. “I don’t get what you’re mad about,” Bucky tries, calmly. “Apparently it’s crossed your mind.” Which, in any other situation, would be a good thing, alright, but he’s messing this up stupendously well right now.

“Screw you,” Steve says, quieter.

 _Gladly_.

“No, Steve, what’s the fuzz for?”

Steve gets up from the bed and starts to pace, and panic builds up inside Bucky’s chest. Okay, how can he not fuck it up entirely?

“You… idiot. Do you even realize that it would actually _mean_ something to me?”

And that throws Bucky back, enough to get him off the bed and to the other side of the room. “Of course it does!”

They’re really bad at keeping their voices down, but it got to a point where neither of them really cares. Maybe it’s the leftover alcohol in their bloodstreams, or testing whether truly no one in Massachusetts can hear you scream. “I won’t settle for a notch in your fucking bedpost,” Steve growls, and Bucky would be exhilarated were he not also confused as to why they were having this discussion in the first place.

“You wouldn’t be that. Steve, this has been going on for _so_ fucking long and I’m sick of-”

“How long?”

Bucky winces. Right. “How is that important?”

“Because if you knew while you were adventurously jumping from one bed to another, consider me out,” Steve says, and turns around for emphasis, hand against his hip.

Thing is, though, realizing he had a crush was _exactly_ when he started sleeping around.

“I don’t see how it matters,” he insists. “I was pretty sure you, ever the Golden Boy were first, way out of my league, and second… straight as a ruler.”

That doesn’t do a thing for Steve, who’s pacing wildly across the few square feet there are. “So you just- use your fucking words! Ask.”

“Right back at you, Rogers, why didn’t _you_ spill first?”

“Because it would have been one night – probably the best, I’ll admit – and it wasn’t worth walking our friendship over the plank for that.”

“Well now you know that it wouldn’t be.”

“Now I know that you’re heartless enough to fuck someone else, so I don’t think I should trust you.” With that, he grabs his book and walks out of the room.

Sam is mostly buried under the blanket, and peeks out when he sees Steve approaching. “Are there any more blankets?”

Sam nods. “Yeah, we brought all the quilts back in. By the door.”

Steve nods and takes the first available one, it doesn’t matter because he’s still in layers, it wouldn’t even matter if he had to sleep without a cover.

“You okay, man?” Sam asks, because he can see the fused eyebrows from the opposite couch and also the walls are too thin to miss it. “Yeah, don’t answer that.”

“If every day’s gonna be like this, I’ll jog back to Boston,” Steve says.

“Pietro wouldn’t recommend it,” Sam half-jokes. The kid’s alright, since Barnes knows how to do some things right. Surprisingly.

“Yeah, no. I don’t know. Just… Could you? Sleep with someone else when you’re in love?” It doesn’t make sense to Steve, that’s for sure. Bucky just assumed and went his own way.

Sam shrugs. Looks like he has to get over himself and deal, ‘cause yeah. That ship sailed as soon as he saw it. “I think in some way, he thought he was doing you a favor. You know, the team captain dating a guy… Don’t get me wrong, but scouts are a little backwards with this kind of stuff.”

“I know. I mean, the cards are dealt anyway,” he says with a sigh.

“How about sleep?” This day has to end, eventually.

“Sounds good to me,” Steve replies, and pulls the quilt over himself.

* * *

 

Tony doesn’t look happy, arms crossed as he faces away from Rhodey on his side of the bed. “Do you think I have a problem?”

Rhodey looks at the shirt he was about to put on. “With what?”

“Alcohol, obviously.” It is, isn’t it? Hard to remember a night he went to bed completely sober.

Rhodey should be honest. It’d be good to address it head-on for once. “I think you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin. Alcoholism, well, it’s never the root, but a byproduct of an underlying cause.” Tony’s not an idiot, of course he knows that.

He makes an annoyed sound. “I’m the root of the problem.”

“You’re not.”

Tony sighs. “Remember when Zo found us making out in the kitchen, couple years ago on Christmas?”

Rhodey sits down on the bed. “I think so,” he replies. They had eggnog, lots of it. Tony more than him.

“Well, she ratted me out. Sent me to the devil in Portuguese that same night.”

At least that cleared up why Tony’s maid stared at Rhodey like she wanted to burn him at a stake.

“Pretty sure he just needed a few more reasons to hate me, anyway. He told me to keep it low-profile or he’d cut you out of the scholarship program.” That was news.

At least it somewhat justifies the secrecy. “I… thank you. But you should have given me a head’s up first.”

“I’m sorry. I feel like such a fuck-up.”

Rhodey tries not to take that personally. Tony can be a self-centered dick without meaning to. “But you’re not,” he insists. For reasons that go by the name of love and helpless admiration he doesn’t get tired of saying it however often it needs to be voiced.

“You’re like, the only good part of me, Rhodes,” Tony says, quieter. “And I feel like a dick for not letting everyone else know. Letting them think I… you know.” He sighs, because the rumors Tony personally spreads about his love life are not his favorite thing to hear in the locker rooms.

“I’m not the only good thing about you, Tony. I wouldn’t date a lost cause, I do have standards.”

“Apparently not.”

Rhodey sighs, and shifts closer until he can put his leg around Tony. “Our friends wouldn’t have ratted you out. Or me. But I’m grateful for your weird way of protecting my future.”

“Ours,” Tony says, and it’s like someone’s tuning down his vocal chords every time he opens his mouth. The more honest he is, the quieter he gets.

“Ours.” Rhodey closes his eyes, but he can feel the tension in Tony’s body like he’s carrying a current. “What else is bugging you?”

“The first one. What if that’s not the only reason?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Pretty sure it’s not. You’re on top of the class of a prestigious university, are known for partying like a washed-up celebrity and you’re father is a self-entitled asshole. And that’s just the top of the list. We’ll get you through this. I can handle your bullshit.”

“Glad to know you have my back.”

* * *

 

A knock on the door gets Peggy out of the sleep she’d been halfway to get.

“I’ll get it,” Darcy says, and jumps up like she’s been poked with something sharp.

Bucky is so not sure about this, but, it went south already, might as well settle there. “Hey, Darce, I believe you still have my keys,” he says. “I left my cigarettes in the car.” Which isn’t a complete lie, but not the full truth, either.

Darcy smiles knowingly, and Peggy props up on her elbow to say, “My, you’re a bad example for a to-be doctor.”

“Well, you need bad examples to compare, don’t you?” he replies, needing her judgement least of all. “Not everyone can be perfect,” he adds, and much quieter, “like you.” _He’s all yours, Carter._

Peggy raises a sharp eyebrow at him. Clint would probably take a shot if she saw her right now.

“I’ll go with you,” Darcy says, getting the keys from the night stand drawer and inconspicuously snatching a condom from her bag when she gets out a warm jacket.

“Thanks,” Bucky says blandly, throwing one last look at Peggy and walking out.

Peggy definitely doesn’t like the red rim around his eyes, not with what she’s gotten from the conversation. No matter what, she tries to hold herself above schadenfreude, and for a brief moment, she considers getting out of bed and walk over to Steve for a talk. They’re usually good at this, spilling out their hearts a little to loose some of the weight they carry. Whether it’s game night or the struggle to balance her many minor degrees with some time to lean back. This is supposedly her first full week off in over a year, though it doesn’t look it, for the drama cooking up already.

Behind the door, they take a planned detour to the bathroom, which has a window opening up to the garage. Bucky made sure both Sam and Steve were asleep downstairs before he left the room.

 He climbs onto the toilet lid, opens the window and has one foot out when he waits for Darcy to follow.

He gently shuts it behind them. “Is that your other field of expertise?”

“Escaping from judgy parents or clingy one-night stands? I believe that’s my part-time job,” he replies, and looks at the height difference between them and the ground. There’s a patch of grass and if they sit down on the roof and jump then, they’re not gonna break anything. As in, bones _and_ property.

“Come here,” he says, guiding her over to the other side of the roof. The tiles squeak, but endure it long enough for them not to fall down.

“And what’s the plan on the way back?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I don’t think there is.”

It’s usually Steve who goes in head-first, but well, maybe there _was_ some rubbing off going on. He jumps down and curses quietly at his heels sending that uncomfortable shock wave up his body.

“You okay?”

Bucky nods. “Sit down, then slide off, I’ll soften the landing,” he says.

Darcy is more careful than he is, but the last tile slips from under her foot and she shrieks inevitably as she falls on her side and slides the rest of the way down, until she has nothing but the drain to hold onto. “Shitfucking cuntsucker,” she yelps, and Bucky can’t help a chuckle.

“I’ll quote you on that later,” he replies, then adds, “Relax, I’m right here, just let go.”

“That was addressed to you,” she hisses back and takes a deep breath.

“Just remember to bend your knees when you land.” Another inhale. Exhale.

The drain makes a worrying sound. “Oh, fuck fuck fuck-”

Ground. She touches ground. And the drain is still there, looking only slightly mistreated. Bucky’s arms around her.

Pretty good for someone with a mild phobia of heights.

“Car?” he mumbles into her ear.

Shit, does she still have the keys? Pocket. Good. Keys are in the pocket.

“Hm,” she replies, leaning back into him as his hand wanders up her jacket. It’s cold, and her breath hitches a little, and swallows a moan when he squeezes her breast next.

If he pushes all thoughts far enough away, he can definitely get into this. She touches his elbow and pulls his hand away, only to take it into hers and walk over to the car parked a few feet away from the garage Tony’s Audi occupies.

The lights draw some attention to them, but with all the blinds in the cabin drawn, everyone else probably missed it.

Or so Bucky hopes.

She gets into the back seat, dragging him with until he’s just above her, and then locks her hands above his neck until she draws her head up to kiss him.

He’s quick, pulling off her jacket with the hand that’s not keeping him from falling onto her, and gets back to where he left off.

It’s hard to judge herself when that’s where she’s wanted him for some time now, wondering why he never caught on to it until now. Or not wondering, given that she offered a pity fuck and that’s what he agreed she was worth.

She’s in her sleepwear underneath, so the rest of her clothes are easily thrown across the car’s interior, and he takes off his own shirt and pants in record time. “I got us covered,” she says, locking their lips again while she uses one hand to get the condoms from the pocket. The plastic scratches her belly as she places it there for now.

“Covered, huh?” he replies between kisses, and reaches back to run his hand along her thigh. This is fine. He said his part and it’s not up to Bucky to prove him anything.

But isn’t proving him right a little too self-indulgent, even for him? Especially since it’s starting to feel like the next best thing, which isn’t fair.

“Look, I didn’t know with whom, but I knew I would at the very least have a chance,” she muses, and reaches down between them to stroke him. He grunts and closes his eyes.

Okay, no, too much. He catches her arm and pulls it away. “What? Did I do something wrong?” she asks. The windows are already clouded, which might be for the better. He wouldn’t like what he’d see in the reflection.

“Um…”

Darcy pulls back into a seating position. “Oh, okay. Gotcha.” She turns away and her hair hides her expression. Bucky looks for his clothes at the same time as she is, and they get dressed in silence.

“You still need your cigarettes?” she asks.

“Definitely,” he replies. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head. “No, God, I get it.” She forces herself to look at him. “It’s fine.”

They remain seated, and it feels like he owes her an explanation. “Don’t know if you’ve heard across the wall, but, this kind of thing is exactly why it didn’t work out tonight. I guess I just… Sex helps me not-think, not… I wasn’t imagining him or anything. Every time I’m with someone else I could convince myself I wasn’t in love with him, that’s all.”

Darcy huffs out a light chuckle. “I have a feeling that there’s something, um, martyring about this, but I don’t see how that was easier than just being upfront with him.”

Bucky places a hand on the door knob, wondering too. “Being honest just makes things complicated.”

“Isn’t it the other way around?”

He opens the door to get the cigarettes from the trunk, which he threw in there after a quarrel between him and Steve about smoking them while driving. Just yesterday, on their way here. She follows him with her arms crossed.

“Not when it comes to me,” he says, opening the trunk to get them. They didn’t need to get out of the car for this, just reaching behind the back seat could have been enough, but it’s good that they did. The air was getting stuffy and awkward.

“Care to share?” she asks when he pulls one out of the pack.

He hands one over wordlessly, and holds up the lighter he’d put in there, too. They lean against the car, smoking.

“That’s the worst post-coital cigarette ever,” Darcy snorts.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“Was it… what you said earlier. Would we have done it, theoretically, before…?”

“Hm?”

“Trying to figure out if you are into me at all,” she admits.

“What are you talking about?”

She pushes out the smoke, feeling stupider by the second. “I’ve been trying to screw you for like, half a year,” she says.

Oh God. Horror distorts his expression. So he managed to break two hearts in one night.

“I’m not in love with you, Jesus. You’re hot. It’s a stupid reason, but I just. I needed to prove it to myself. That I could get some action with someone like you.”

Bucky takes a long pull, and makes a face. “I think I should be offended.”

“You should be. I never said I’m a perfect feminist, or even a good one.”

“No, I mean, I’m _not_. But I’m not hearing this for the first time. I just don’t think you should base any value on who you can get to sleep with you. You’re awesome, Darcy. You don’t need a sticker from me to prove that.”

“I’m awesome. That’s great.”

Bucky pushes her gently. “You’re a catch, if you’re asking about that.”

She throws the cigarette on the ground, and extinguishes it with her slipper, which, in retrospective, probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Thanks,” she says. “I think if you tell Steve what you told me, he’ll find a way to forgive you. It’s a stupid misunderstanding.”

Bucky isn’t sure about that, but he nods.

“Any idea how we’re getting back inside?”

“Very quietly.”

Not quietly enough for Sam not to notice them walk upstairs, though.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes. A month later, here we are. I'm kinda disappointed in myself that I didn't stick to a more regular schedule since it's pretty much fully written and revised, but there's just so much stuff happening and I can't keep up.
> 
> But Tom Holland's lip sync to Umbrella gave me life again. Honestly, why is he like this and why aren't more people?


	3. Chapter 3

The next day kicks off with a storm. It wakes Pietro early in the morning, and he doesn’t like the lack of sunlight.

If it weren’t for the lightning, he might have considered to go out for a run. He is feeling better. At least he has that.

Rain reminds him about bad things. Things he wishes he could outrun. He still hates cars, sitting in them. It’s why he hated getting a driver’s license he ended up not needing in the States; being at the steering wheel didn’t help his father, either.

“ _Wanda, are you awake?_ ” Pietro asks, barely louder than the rain.

“Áno, čo je?” she mumbles back.

“ _Aren’t you scared?_ ”

“A little bit,” she says in English. “But you know the house is safe.”

He sighs. She deals better with it, despite her occasional tantrums, when he can’t calm her down or she bites him. In America, she was the first to make friends. She had classes with Steve and Clint, and they liked her.

It hurts knowing that they don’t like him as much. Bucky was nice yesterday, but he had to be. Bucky is going to be a doctor, it makes sense that he needed to help.

“Yes,” he says. This stupid language. They only got here for the goo attention to the university, even if Wanda hates that. Of course she is a good gymnast, but it is not the reason she got a scholarship.

Poor twins from an orphanage who worked really hard and finally it paid off. What is that again? The American Dream.

Wanda worries about him when he gets like this. She gets like this, too, of course, but it doesn’t hit her as hard. It was an old car, the roads were bad. Their parents had fought a lot about fixing the brakes, but it was that or going a month without proper food.

“Do you want to get up? Watch the TV?” she offers. It’s how they learned the language, international channels. News. Usually bad ones.

“Sam is still sleeping.”

“We can turn off the sound, read the subtitles,” she says.

Pietro gets up slowly. He’s better, but not good enough yet. Wanda climbs down from the bed above his, and goes over to the bag to fetch something to wear for today. Not a dress like yesterday, so she goes for a very long shirt and leggings, both matching in black.

“Who were you trying to impress yesterday?” Pietro teases.

“Not your business, _chumaj,_ ” she replies. But there is someone.

He pushes down the door slowly, and looks out into the living room. They have the only room on the ground floor, so they don’t need to walk down those creaking stairs.

Sam and, apparently Steve too, are sleeping on the sofas. The two settle in front of Sam’s couch, on the carpet, and turn on the TV.

There is a cooking show on, or… It’s a talk show, but they’re cooking something with asparagus. Pietro fumbles with the settings to find the closed captions.

‘ _Well, if you sear it off, it has less of that cabbage taste to it, and the garlic gives it a certain extra.’_

_‘So it’s not breakfast friendly.’_

_‘Depends on whether you brush your teeth before or after!’_

The women on screen laugh. Pietro puts his head on Wanda’s shoulder, even though he’s taller. She places a kiss on his forehead.

One after another, more people wake up, but it takes the whole span of the morning show they are watching, two news breaks and a reality show about a family that wants to renovate their house for all of them to get to the living room.

Once a majority has joined them, Wanda gets into the kitchen.

“I was thinking we make a simple breakfast today,” she says. “We’ve got bread and a lot of ham and cheeses.”

“Are you two on cooking duty today?” Clint asks, sipping from his second coffee.

“I told you, we’re going by volunteers,” Peggy replies, going for the

“I don’t mind. Do you guys know lokše?” Wanda asks, slicing the bread.

They shake their heads. “Bucky, maybe, but Sleeping Beauty’s taking their time this morning,” Rhodey says.

“Jeez, wonder why,” Sam says, surprisingly agitated.

“It’s potato pancakes, not sweet. Usually they go with cabbage, but we can do something else,” Pietro says. “It’s good to eat in between, if we make a lot. If the rain goes on, I don’t think we’re going outside today.”

Tony seems more than excited by this. “I’d say we wreck the cellar. I’ve got DDR and an old PlayStation down there.” Because of course his father wanted him as far away as possible from his study, and it was good to have some kind of entertainment center for the frats from around Massachusetts who the place usually goes to in the summer.

Darcy would go wild at the idea of a SingStar marathon, but she is still upstairs, sleeping or pretending to.

Sam sees Steve’s sulking from a mile away, but he acknowledges on his deep entrancement with the sports news only to himself. It’s justified, but no team he cares about had a recent game to win, so it’s more likely the scraps of the last day weighing on him. Unlike some.

Right, Natasha?

Today he sees how fucked up her _quod erat demonstrandum_ spectacle actually was, on a sober mind and a dented heart, more so with her nonchalant feline behavior around Clint, lying with her head on his lap exactly where Sam was sleeping just an hour ago.

Sure, just a kiss, but the implication had been that he was the one to draw the line. That she would be capable of betraying Clint, but he wasn’t.

He knew Natasha’s moral compass was a little off-whack, since minor breaking and entering (with less breaking) was no big deal to her, as was cheating if she didn’t get caught, but this is worse. The other things usually don’t directly hurt other people.

“So, any other suggestions?” Peggy asks.

“Who Am I,” Clint says.

“A dork,” Natasha replies with a grin. He rolls his eyes and puts his finger on her nose, and she grimaces.

“The game, obviously.”

“Still true.” Natasha pushes herself off of his lap for a light kiss. She’s better than this. A little guilt nags at her for the hands-on experiment, but his embarrassing devotion to her reminds her that she’s definitely above these games. A different Natasha might have seized the opportunity, watch the end result unfold with a few pulls and pushes.

But you don’t play with feelings. Even if it’s difficult to remember that you have them sometimes.

“Again, upstairs you two. Maybe ask Sam to join, he could probably learn a thing or two,” Tony says with a finger pointed up.

Natasha smirks, but Clint replies with a “Fuck off,” making her commentary redundant.

Wanda cuts up the whole loaf, a handful of tomatoes and an entire cucumber while Pietro arranges the meat and cheese plate as nicely as he can. So it looks like it used to at home on Sunday mornings.

At least the bickering is somewhat close.

* * *

 

“Am I… attractive?” Darcy asks.

The round scoots forward to study her forehead closely. Clint has a terrible handwriting. Chickens all over the globe would be offended to have theirs compared to that.

“Depends on who you’re asking,” Bucky says, leaning back first.

“It’s a Yes or No question,” Darcy says with an eye roll.

Tony snorts. “Barnes prefers to be in between.”

“How did you know?” Bucky snaps back, and regrets the sarcastic remark when he accidentally meets Steve’s eyes. Not a word since yesterday. Things are going great.

“Yes,” Peggy answers definitively.

“Am I male?” Darcy goes on.

“No.”

Clint sits upright, next in turn. “Am I famous?” he asks.

“Yes,” the group says.

“Am I an actor?”

“No.”

They move on a few people. With eleven in the room, the game takes a while, but there’s little else to do but drink and find out what your friends associate you with, because that’s how this game works.

“Am _I_ famous?” Bucky asks when he’s up.

“Depends on who you’re asking,” Darcy parrots.

The corners of Tony’s shit-eating grin are starting to tear up a little. “She’s actually not wrong,” he says. Of course Tony would seize the opportunity of teasing Bucky when he got to pick for him, Rhodey thinks.

“In some circles, she means, so yes,” Rhodey clears up.

“Okay… what, like, the gay scene?”

It’s technically still a polar question, but not a hundred percent accurate one.

“Aren’t we gonna confuse him if we say Yes?” Clint asks, who isn’t in the circle in question and thus had to be enlightened _after_ Tony scribbled it on the post-it note on Bucky’s forehead.

“Almost-yes,” Tony says.

“Can I go on, then?” A mix of noises, but Bucky does anyway.

“Do I appear on screens?” Figures, Bucky thinks bitterly, the safe question gets him right to the next.

“Do I do a _certain_ kind of movies?”

It was too easy after all, because everyone else groans at Tony for making him win with his unnecessary teasing, because the next question is, “I’m Tayte Hanson, aren’t I?”

A minor outrage and surprise that he figured it out so quickly goes around.

During freshman year, a picture was sent around campus that, at that particular angle, looked deceivingly close to Bucky’s features, and that’s pretty much how he earned his reputation. A screenshot of a gay porn actor. It didn’t only spread on the Boston University campus, but all the way from Cambridge to the coast line colleges. There hasn’t been a party since where he wasn’t talked up by someone asking about the compromising picture. Makes it easier to score in bed than with the professors.

“Very funny, Tony,” Bucky says, and gets up. “As a clue for yours, you’re both tools,” he adds, failing to resist the urge to bite back when he’s wounded, and goes outside.

The door slams shut, and Sam turns to Steve, studying his Tom Brady sticker only for a second before saying, “Look, about what I said yesterday… I don’t think he’s the kind of person I thought he was.”

Steve’s face twitches, and he looks braced for whatever Sam has to say.

“I woke up last night from Darcy and Bucky walking upstairs. To his room, I think.” Sam hadn’t moved to look, obviously, but guesses were, after their not-so subtle escape through the window above the garage – again, the first floor is an open space hallway, framed by a handrail on one and the bedroom doors on the other side, how is everyone missing that – started something outside that they decided to finish somewhere more comfortable.

Steve nods, and instead of externally reacting to it in the middle of the game, he drinks his beer as he looks at the entrance door, Bucky’s silhouette faintly outlined behind the blurred glass.

* * *

 

Now that Bucky has his Marlboro’s, he also has a perfect excuse to leave the room regularly. But with Steve purposefully ignoring him, Sam acting strangely and Tony being himself, it’s more often than he has cigarettes for, so he’s standing under the porch, watching the sky pour down everything it’s got.

If yesterday was supposed to be the calm _before_ the storm, then today someone will have to die to live up to the expectations.

As if on cue, Natasha comes out to join him. “I heard what happened,” she says. So much for saving cigarettes.

“As did everyone else,” Bucky replies bitterly.

She shrugs. “Steve was wrong, though, about something.” She didn’t _hear_ , she eavesdropped. A matter of semantics to her, of course.

He looks at her, vaguely intrigued. She always claims to know everyone else better than they know themselves, just because she read a couple of books on patterned human behavior.

“You’re far from heartless. Believe me, I would know.” He snorts as he lights a cigarette after all.

“Of course you do, fancy psychology major and all.”

She doesn’t react to it, visibly. “That’s not what I meant. I know what heartless looks like from a glance in the mirror. Your self-interest revolves around doing what’s best for everyone, however screwed up that sounds.”

He pulls out the twenty from his leather jacket and offers it to her.

“For the free psychoanalysis,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Calculated aversion of the topic because you agree that I’m right.” He chuckles tetchily.

“I don’t have more than that on me right now,” he says with an edge to his words. Then a frown draws upon his face, because trying to excuse his actions she brought a whole new subject into the equation. “What was that about the mirror thing?”

She smiles. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? ‘Fancy psychology major and all’. I would know who I’m looking at when I see my reflection.”

“But you’re with Clint,” he says, not sure why she felt the need to reveal that particular piece of trivia, whatever it’s implying, when she’s otherwise so concerned with her privacy.

She raises a red eyebrow at him. “You think I couldn’t fake it?”

Out of nowhere, he does. Not really ‘nowhere’ though, she just put that thought into his head and now he’s worried that if what she says is true, she could potentially do some real damage to a guy who’s infatuated with her to a fault. “No…”

“I kissed Sam yesterday,” she confesses, which again, really atypical for her, sharing anything that isn’t necessary to be told.

“Why?”

Her lips twitch, like she’s amused. “Because he’s into me.”

Bucky is almost surprised. Almost, because Sam and Nat have this quite intense friendship going on, or, now that he retraces the events of yesterday, they did until the barbecue. So, whether that goes to show male/female friendship dynamics are always icky or this is just another isolated case, which, well, is unlikely, even with his open-mindedness.

Hard to tell though what exactly happened, since today’s been all stares and sealed lips behind the idle chit-chat and old-school games.

“Are you gonna… I don’t know, go for it?”

She frowns, a hint of an affronted reaction. “Obviously not.” She takes his cigarette unasked. “He’s too ethical about it, it’s just that something in me decided to prove it with a dirty kiss rather than mere words.”

Bucky inhales, not too sure what to do with the info dump. “Well, did it work at least?”

She pulls at the cigarette until it shrinks down to a filter and a very hot, risky last pull. “My point is that lucky for you, you’re not me. You never would have touched another person had you known about Steve’s true feelings. You are not, by any means, heartless.”

Bucky chuckles, a little bit at a loss. “Still want that twenty?”

* * *

 

Turns out, they’re out of beer. And the only completely sober person left is Pietro, because with his lack of appetite, he isn’t touching alcohol whatsoever.

“Guys, there’s so much other stuff left,” Wanda argues, so that they don’t have to justify it with the truth. It’s not that Wanda thinks they would laugh, they’re not evil, but because it’s something they haven’t talked to anyone about in the group. In fact, the remaining nine people know very little about what she and her brother went through before they got their scholarships.

“Beer!” Sam shouts, a little too loudly, except a few others join him with a chant. Yeah, turns out he’s not as fine as he thought he was about that show-don’t-tell thing Natasha pulled off, given how little self-control he’s showing with his level of intoxication. Now he is confused and guilty and unable to look Clint in the eye, who’s chanting along with him.

“We can drive together,” Wanda says, and touches his arm lightly. He won’t admit he’s shivering a little. The thunder and lightning passed about an hour ago, but the clouds are hanging so low they cover most of the sunlight, and it looks hours later than it actually is.

Wanda is a little pissed at Sam’s insistence, since he’s usually sensitive to how his friends are feeling.

Bucky goes over to the twins. “Pietro, if you’re feeling too sick, I’ll teach these guys how to down a whiskey. Just tell me.”

Pietro looks away. “It’s not that.”

Wanda sighs, and checks in with her brother before she says, “Our parents died in a car accident. During a storm.”

“Oh, shit,” Bucky says, gives them both a gentle neck squeeze and his condolences, then turns around to the group. “All right, fuckers, seriously, anyone else in here who has less than point eight alcohol content in their bloodstream and could very slowly get  beer from the nearest store?”

Steve had three beers over the span of two hours and is probably not feeling it because of the ample supply of lokše that had been made for lunch by the twins. Pietro looks unwilling for some reason, so Steve raises his arm. “I can, I’m just not over twenty-one.”

“Take my ID,” Tony says.

Darcy rolls her eyes, “And that is exactly why you’re not the leader of this group.”

“I’m not?”

Bucky looks at Steve, who continues to ignore him. “I’ll go with you,” he says.

So what, he took a gap year volunteering at a free clinic in Boston while Steve was getting through his last year of high school, there’s a minor age difference. Between him and most people in the room, in fact, and unless Steve is willing to take on casually affectionate and irritating Tony for a drive in the rain, he doesn’t have many options.

“Fine,” Steve says, and goes upstairs to get a warm jacket.

Natasha and Darcy both throw him encouraging looks of varying degrees. That’s a weird development, having two people rooting for him to get laid. Or… well, it’s more than that, isn’t it.

Steve snatches the keys Bucky had dangling from his index finger with an unsubtle aggression and pulls the hood over his head before he walks out and all but runs to the car door.

Bucky worries that Steve might drive without him, which would be pointless, but nothing new. Steve definitely has a history of needless dramatization.

He speeds, even before they get out of the tree-lined road leading up to the highway. It’s a straight line, but it’s muddy, and covered in leaves and stones that make the car jump every other second. “Hey,” Bucky warns. Sure, it’s his old man’s wheels but that doesn’t justify the treatment it’s getting, given that the target is actually Bucky.

For that, Steve pushes the gas pedal down even further. “I don’t think your grudge is worth getting us killed over,” Bucky barks, and that seems to work.

Seeing reason must be really hard when you have to turn on the windshield wipers to the highest setting, huh.

They get to the off-ramp at a reasonable speed, since even though Bucky is all about testing the limit of his father’s Chevy, he stands by his point of not being sent into a tailspin and potentially lethal somersault simply because Steven Grant Rogers has beef with him.

“Wanna talk?” Bucky asks tentatively, but not without hiding his annoyance about the stupid stunt.

Steve’s lips remain sealed. Well, something is up. More than a ‘I hate that you cheated on me before you even knew I had feelings for you’ something.

Thing is, if Bucky hadn’t screwed the first person available right after finding out, Steve might have come around, eventually. He’d thought about Sam’s words, and his own experience with Bucky. Until now, he’d never thought Bucky could actually be this much of a dick.

“Seriously, you don’t care to share why you’re driving like you’re on a suicide mission and not a four-mile beer run?”

Steve glares at him and pushes the brakes on purpose. The tires screech awfully as they’re being grated over the pavement, until they do their best to bring the car to a full stop. Thankfully, no one else is on the road, so even though Bucky’s seatbelt punches the air out of his lungs, there was no additional whiplash from a surprised driver with a delayed reaction behind to crush into them.

“I can’t fucking believe you right now,” Steve all but yells. “You’re pulling that innocent crap after doing _exactly_ what you said you haven’t been doing.”

“A lot of doing in that sentence,” Bucky notes with an ill-fitting, jocular undertone, and Steve could fucking punch him right now. He should, but as soon the thought crosses Steve’s mind, the awful impulse dissipates, because he could never do that to him. “But I haven’t done anything.”

“What about Darcy?” Bucky pretends not to know, and it boils Steve’s blood all over, because he knows that fucking expression and he’s not buying it. “Sam saw you two go into the guest room.”

“No he didn’t,” Bucky replies, because Darcy went to the study on the other side of the hallway immediately after they parted on the stairs. “I slept alone, ask Peggy.”

Steve nods, and starts the car again. “Fine,” he says, “but why should I believe you?”

“Steve, for fuck’s sake why would I-”

“Did you consider it?”

“What exactly, Steve? Use your fucking words, Lit class my fucking ass,” Bucky almost shouts. Not that he has a right to, he knows what he did, but he didn’t go through with it so why can’t they be done with this already.

“Sleeping with her, to spite me.” At that, his expression falters, and he scrambles for anything to say to save face, but it’s too late.

“Perfect,” Steve says, “So for God knows how many years that your crush has survived, you slept around trying to forget it. How am I not surprised that it’s exactly what you went for once you found out it was reciprocated.”

Bucky tilts his head back and pushes his hips up to get his cigarettes out of his jeans pocket. Fuck the rain pouring in  as he opens a window. Fuck this all.

“I’m getting tired of having to ask what you mean behind your mysterious phrasing, but what exactly are you accusing me of here? _Not_ sleeping with Darcy because I didn’t want to fuck it up for good, whatever chance I had?”

Steve starts the car again, because this could take a while and the guys seemed pretty serious about getting their beers. “I’m just stating the fact that you wouldn’t last in a relationship.”

“What now?”

“We had a fight, and your first instinct was to fuck away your frustration, how about that _,_ ” Steve says, and looks at Bucky blankly, which is even scarier than any indication of his inner workings could have been.

“That’s not true, you’re ignoring the circumstances,” Bucky replies, but knows that it’s not convincing. They’re nearing the small town they drove past on their way to the cabin. Bucky takes a deep pull from his cigarette, waiting for whatever Steve’s gonna say with his head turned elsewhere, because he has a feeling it’s going to hurt. The silence stretches all the way to the parking spot by the liquor store, until the engine shuts off.

“You know, not sleeping with her ended you exactly where you would have been if you had, so I’m sorry I got in the way of a good fuck,” Steve says before he opens the door. Bucky, albeit not willing to, has to follow, because Steve isn’t getting far without an ID.

* * *

 

Natasha knows, rationally, that she should apologize to Sam, and probably to Clint, as well. But she also knows that the chances of this secret seeing daylight are miniscule. Sam’s not a talker, has an easily bothered conscience and respects his friendship with Clint too much to tell him about his terrible girlfriend. And Bucky, well, he’s not a meddler.

The one thing worse than Clint finding out is that he will forgive her immediately. Or is it really worse? It’s what she’d want him to do, if she was a good girlfriend. A tiny, malicious part of her doesn’t want his forgiveness, though, a part she’s been good at taming, so no worries that it will overpower the priority to be civil about it, especially after one slip-up.

There needed to be some balance to it, though. So making her mistake an educative experience to Bucky must have evened it, albeit just a notch. This feeling is something akin to a weight on her conscience. Even though it wouldn’t affect her directly, hurting Clint wouldn’t be enjoyable to watch.

Even though that is impossible, Sam’s looking at her like he’s reading all of this right off of her forehead, until Wanda distracts him with an offering of chips.

He takes them, and his expression softens. Of course, Wanda’s sweet, she’s everything Natasha could never be. Even with her little dark side and her attempts to sound indifferent and ‘edgy’ to compensate for her lack of the convincing tragic backstory behavior Pietro has written all over him, she’s too nice to really incorporate that convincingly. Underneath it all, she’s a lost little girl overwhelmed by college and the drastic change in her life.

And Sam’s just looking for something that’s bigger than his life at home, who got into an Ivy League College by busting his ass in a school on the other side of town both in class and on the football field. He likes Natasha because he’s not used to girls that show interest in him when he’s not wearing his Letterman and thus can’t tell the difference between the brutal use of her charm and honest flirting. She treats him like a person, like any other person, really. There to amuse her or otherwise not interesting.

Sam doesn’t mind Wanda squeezing herself next to him, telling him it’s just so he can reach the chips more easily. She’s tipsy on Peggy’s wine, he can tell, but it’s adorable. She laughs at almost everything, even at Sam announcing that he’s not waiting any longer for the troubled pair of Steve and Bucky to return, and makes Tony pass on the Jack Daniel’s to him.

He mixes it with Coca Cola and playfully bites into the chip Wanda’s holding, which makes her blush a little, but she tries not to draw his attention to it.

Peggy thinks that they’re a troubled pair indeed, curious as to whether the opportunity to address their issues in an even more confined space than this cabin will seal the deal.

After two years of trying to get Steve’s attention, she’s almost had it at the bonfire, and then Bucky drew it all back on himself.

It’s terrible to dislike him for wanting Steve as well, but it’s worse to watch Steve going through all this pain for him willingly. See him smile at Bucky the way she would have wanted him to smile at her instead.

“What are you fuming about?” Natasha asks, nudging Peggy with her elbow.

“Nothing important,” Peggy replies. “Looks like group activities are done for the day.”

“Well,” Natasha replies, “I think it’s a good thing, with all the drama going on.”

Peggy feels an appetite that usually accompanies a certain amount of alcohol, and turns to Nat to say, “Do you want some lokše? I’m not sure the rubbish here is gonna mix well with wine.”

Natasha smiles. “Lokše are pretty much a fancy, soft version of chips. If your read the ingredients.”

Peggy gets up anyway. “It isn’t really about the ingredients.” Natasha shrugs, and walks to the kitchen with her. She rolls up one and hands it over, then gets one for herself.

“These actually taste pretty nice with jam, have you tried?” Natasha says, walks over to the fridge and puts the glass on the counter, and a spoonful on the roll. Peggy follows her example, and nods profusely.

“Do you do these too, at home?” she asks.

“No, but we did pancakes akin to crêpes sometimes, on Sundays before church. My mother got up really early, because they take time and we only had one pan for them.”

“Does she still?”

Natasha jumps onto a free counter, and dips the lokše into the jam again. “She left when I was eight.” More like, her father put her into a psychiatric facility to get rid of her and her bipolar disorder, then divorced her while she was there. Details. Not significant enough in context.

“How did I not know? My father left us, too. Got a job to train new recruits back in England, and my mother refused to leave the States.”

Natasha’s mouth quirks up. “She raised you and your brother by herself?”

Peggy shakes her head. “Remarried a divorce lawyer.” Natasha can’t help a laugh.

“The one that…?”

“Obviously.”

Natasha shakes her head. “That’s a different caliber of irony.”

“You tell me,” Peggy replies as the main door swings open and in stomps an agitated Steve with a keg of beer, followed by a rather timid Bucky, who must have opened up for him.

At least Peggy didn’t need to wonder anymore.

The situation between the pining boys was rather expected, at least much more predictable than Sam drawing back from what had been about to be a kiss between him and Wanda. Natasha’s lips curl in amusement. This is getting interesting again.

* * *

 

The evening progresses, the ones who have been waiting for beer get buzzed again, and Pietro is at least ready for the instant noodle pack they got into his stomach with much persuasion.

No alcohol. He’s the only one sober and missing out for the second day in a row. This way, they’ll never like him.

He hates feeling jealous of Wanda, who’s migrated into Sam’s lap, who has had more luck than him so far with making friends.

Pietro knows these people, at least somewhat. He only sees them when his sister drags him along to a party, because they never sit next to him in a shared class. Okay, Tony, Rhodey, Bucky and Natasha go to different universities, but the so-called ‘jocks’ that go with him and Wanda, who he has the occasional class with because their schedules are alike, don’t even greet him during warm-up when they see him run past on the track field in the mornings.

Wanda can, but _he_ wouldn’t call them friends. Without him, they’d be an even number. He wouldn’t be the odd one out that he already feels like he is.

The noodles go soggy quickly, and they’re terribly salty, even though Bucky recommended not to use up the whole flavor pack for that exact reason. Maybe he just has to get used to eating something again. He’s still a little dizzy.

Everyone else around him is talking, over the loud stereo no one is actually listening to, so he decides to go to his room, maybe read a book.

Steve sees Pietro walking past him to go to bed already, and refocuses on Rhodey explaining him, Sam, Wanda and Clint why treating small head injuries seriously can be vital to a later time in life, because these micro-concussions can lead to aggressive behavior and early-onset Alzheimer’s.

“Well, you can’t play football ‘safely’,” Clint argues.

Rhodey shakes his head. “No, of course. And making the helmets thicker will, at least with current materials and guidelines, not make much of a difference, either. But taking it easier during training can save you a lot of trouble, especially if you decide not to go down the NFL path.”

Clint frowns. “You’re not?”

Rhodey laughs as if that was obvious. “Seriously? The team’s called ‘The Engineers’, we lose early in the season and the only reason it’s being kept up is because Tony’s father is pouring his pocket money into the program so kids who would otherwise not get into MIT even stand a chance.”

Upon the mentioning of his father father, Tony stops mid-sentence in a conversation with Darcy and immediately walks over. “He needs those sporty nerds for his army of professional bomb makers,” he says snappily, and Rhodey rolls his eyes.

“Stark Industries has a history, alright, but it’s involved with other projects, like fossil fuel friendly transportation.”

“So he can drop his bombs with a shallow ecological footprint,” Tony remarks. “Which side are you on?”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “Not Howard Stark’s personally, I’m not even gonna apply there. But I was thinking about using my degree in the robotics field.”

“So, drones.”

Rhodey nods reluctantly. “Possibly.”

That pisses off Tony unexpectedly. While the bitching about his father is common and at this point background noise, he seems personally offended by Rhodey’s plans. The two scatter away from the scene – again, to everyone else’s surprise, because Tony rarely misses a chance to make the world his stage.

Clint watches the door snap shut behind them after some pretty low-key bickering on their way upstairs. He thinks of a good transition.

“Were you a captain in high school?” he asks Steve, failing miserably at his task.

Steve chuckles. “Actually, no. I wasn’t exactly ‘out there’ in high school. You know, you get that good rep from being on the team, but otherwise I wasn’t really your typical jock. Hardly anyone noticed me.”

Try doing that with a six feet tall Greek god that he is now, Clint thinks.

“He got a 3.5 GPA, is what he meant,” Bucky says, having sat there fiddling with his drink the whole time and being more than a little jealous of Wanda and Sam having exactly what he could have had with a little less idiocy on his part. “He was a giant nerd. Granted, he aced most of the subjects with some help from SparkNotes and myself, but he did landscape and city studies whenever he had a free minute.”

Steve isn’t happy to be talked about in third person, but everyone else doesn’t let him be properly mad at Bucky as they are surprised by the news about his other skills. “You guys, I’m an Art History major, something must have drawn me to it, don’tcha think?”

“What else are you hiding, Rogers?” Clint accuses jokingly, directed at Bucky more than him.

“I’m an okay tap-dancer,” he admits before Bucky finds something juicier to tell them. Better get it out there now.

“No way,” Sam says. “You said you had two and a half left feet.”

“That’s because I hate clubbing and you kept dragging me,” Steve replies, getting up to prove it to them. Barefoot, but on the wooden floor it made just enough noise to at least imitate what it’d sound like.

Everyone looks at him in awe. “Just tap?” Peggy shouts across the room.

“Everything Sam would call ‘whiter than George Washington’s ass’, I guess,” Steve replies with a smile, and Sam cackles.

“Try me, my stepfather forced me to go to the debutant ball in high school,” she says, gets out of the kitchen and walks over to him. Clint is already by the stereo and adjusting his Spotify playlist.

They groan almost instantly when they figure out what song is playing, but Peggy rolls her eyes and proceeds putting her arm on his shoulder and offering the other to Steve. He puts one on her hips while biting his lip, a little embarrassed, but they count down and get into a somewhat slow Foxtrott to Robbie Williams’ _Angels_.

Bucky can’t hear what Steve whispers into her ear until they fall into a slow Lindy Hop by the time the refrain hits and he’s twirling her around; they both have these appalling smiles on their faces, dancing to one of the most cliché couple songs of all times. Well, since he doesn’t know shit about love, he doesn’t have a right to care, right?

They are both a little out of breath when the song ends, and Natasha is the first to clap at their performance.

“I think we should end the night on that high note,” she says, throwing a look at Wanda and Sam looking all cozy on the couch before she unplugs Clint’s phone from the stereo.

Now she could have some fun with Wanda and Sam instead.

“Who’s staying for a movie?” Clint asks.

“Dude, I sleep here,” Sam complains.

“It was your decision, though,” Clint offers and turns on the TV. “So deal.”

Natasha goes over to the reclining chair and places herself down while Clint puts in the movie.

“What are we watching?” Wanda asks. So hey, the perks of Clint’s dickishness is that he still has Wanda sitting on his lap. The downside is that Natasha is staying too.

Not just out of solidarity, but because Sam is not gonna have a chance to rat her out. Though at this point, it’d be even more amusing if he did, get some tension going. Who’s Clint gonna believe? The guy who kissed his girlfriend or her?

“Schindler’s List,” Clint says, and Natasha shakes her head because that is definitely not the case. “Kidding, I got Zombieland.”

“That’s just a rip-off of Romero’s hard-earned input to the genre.”

Clint selects the play option, turns around, and says, “It’s a quest for the most important things in life – Twinkies.”

“Consider me flattered,” Natasha says, with a straight face, but humor to her voice.

“Did you even pay attention?” Sam replies, ignoring Natasha.

Clint shakes his head. “Pretty sure I was high the whole time I watched it.”

“That’s a waste of both time and weed,” Sam says, and leans back. Luckily, Wanda follows as she settles against his side.

* * *

 

Steve ignores the fact that Clint kicked him out of his preferred sleeping spot for tonight, and tries not to think of it as a spontaneous plan to have him and Bucky in the same room. Clint isn’t the type to scheme.

He brushes his teeth for an extensive amount of time, and grudgingly goes into his room, where Bucky is currently getting undressed.

“Sorry, I’ll…” Steve says, and pulls the door knob, but Bucky says, “No, it’s fine.”

He can still go out. But he won’t let him know that this is uncomfortable as hell, so he opens the door and walks inside instead.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he announces, drags his blanket down onto the chafing carpet and the pillow to protect his face.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Steve,” Bucky replies. “I doubt we can go through this rough patch if you keep avoiding me.”

Steve laughs bitterly. “Rough patch?”

Bucky gives him an expectant look as he settles on the bed. “I need you to trust me again, as a friend.”

A friend. “And sharing a bed with you is the way to get there?”

Bucky shrugs, and gets under the covers. “Your choice.”

The cabin has gone mostly silent, except for the sound of the TV downstairs and some muffled chatter.

They both try to fall asleep.

“I highly doubt there’s a way to go back,” Steve says, almost to himself.

Bucky’s pulse picks up uncomfortably in his chest, like it’s too small to contain the information that this is a done deal. Hope is one of the things Bucky considers himself not being depraved of.

“There never is. Time’s linear, ‘sfar as I remember.” The drunkenness only helps the philosophical standpoint. And not letting the ache in Bucky’s chest get too close for comfort. “What… what exactly do you lose if you try?” Bucky asks. Trust is not a thing that re-establishes by itself. Something needs to happen for it. And things will go on as per usual if Bucky doesn’t help them in a certain direction.

Steve hates himself for thinking it, for knowing exactly what’s on stake here, and for letting it matter to him this much, but fair is fair. “You,” he admits.

Bucky’s heartrate doubles. “But you don’t know that.” Some people stay friends when things don’t work out. If only Bucky could prove to him that it would not be him to leave without being asked to, if he could…

“Not for certain, obviously.” It hurts, it hurts to be vulnerable. It hurts to know that Bucky’s got the entire deck and that whatever he deals is what Steve’s gonna take, because the real torture would be having to endure Bucky moving on for real. He might lose either way.

So might as well walk the road less taken. Steve sits up. “Alright,” Steve says.

“Hm?”

“I said, I want to give it a shot.”

Bucky frowns. “Seriously? Did you just do a full one-eighty?”

Steve gets up from the bed slowly. “No, I decided to take my chances with a guy I’ve had a crush on for a while. Probably longer.”

Bucky gasps. “Hypocrite!”

“No, there’s a difference between knowing and ignoring,” he says, getting on the bed with him. If the choice is between now or never, Steve knows how his impulse control is gonna handle it.

He leans over Bucky and gives him an experimental kiss.

“You fucking punk,” Bucky mutters before he pulls him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, 2 chaps in a row because I will probably forget to put them up regularly after all... But yeah... In this fic, Nat has sociopathic tendencies which seemed really canon-compliant once I looked back on it...? I also read nearly any comic that starred her as the main character and in the one that's illustrated like a watercolor-esque graphic novel, she kind of mentions it outright. Then again, I do not share these qualities so if there is anything offensive about it, although I did my best to avoid that, tell me, please.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I'm back lol.
> 
> Been a bit of a weird time recently, I've _actually_ started college/university (in Germany), and haven't felt particularly inspired to write anything until recently. 
> 
> So... there I see a document on my computer with just the first few lines of this chapter in it, and somehow it's spun out of control pretty quickly (a week, literally), and the result was an angsty, semi-witty story about eleven chosen ones from the Marvel lore I've decided to send off to a cabin for five days and get on each other's nerves. 
> 
> Well, I hope it's at least entertaining, because it was fun to write in a somewhat different format than usual, for me. 
> 
> I'd love to hear what you think.


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